Loving v Virgina

Kinney, K-I-N-N-E-Y and then in 1924, in the period of great history in the United States, the historical period we're all familiar with, a period when the west was in arms over the yellow peril and western states were thinking about these laws or some (Inaudible), a period when the immigration laws were being passed to the United States because the north was worried about the great influx of Italian immigrants and Irish immigrants, a period when the Klan rode openly in the south and that's when they talked about bastardy of races, and miscegenation and amalgamation and race suicide became the watch word, and John Powell, a man we singled out in our brief, a noted pianist of his day, started taking up the Darwin Theory and perverting it through the theory of eugenics, the theory that applied to animals, to pigs, and hogs, and cattle.

Loving v Virginia was a case argued before the Supreme Court 1967 and addressed the right of a white man to marry a black woman. The state argued they have the right to regulate marriage.  The plaintiff argued that the law was discriminatory and akin to ‘slave’ legislation.  The court found that distinctions drawn according to race were generally "odious to a free people" and were subject to "the most rigid scrutiny" under the Equal Protection Clause. The Virginia law, the Court found, had no legitimate purpose "independent of invidious racial discrimination."

I am ashamed and angered when I consider how racist my country has been and continues to be.  I chose the above paragraph because it speaks to intolerance related to Native American, Italians, Irish, and of course Blacks.  It is too painful for me to focus only on the unfortunate way this country has treated my ancestors.  It is more palatable to contemplate how ignorantly the establishment treated a number of groups, in addition to blacks.  Listening the arguments made before the Supreme Court was thought provoking and brings about a sense of amazement how much progress has been made since 1967.